Imitation of Life

Imitation of Life is an interracial film between a black woman (Delilah) and white woman (Bea). I think the whole film try to express a new idea to the audience, black people are equal with the white people, they can work together, live together, and even they can open a business and corporate successful. But even though the director tries to make the imitation nicely, it still have the big interracial problem from the film beginning through the end. For my view, I think the whole film potentially still try to express an idea, whether the society try to make the black the whites equally, the white people still have a higher position than black people. And for the white people, if they have any relationship with the black people, they will feel inferiority. In this film, I think Delilah is more successful than Bea, because their business’s wealth is from Delilah’s cooking skill, Bea just have broad mind to expand it. Even though director put Delilah as a maid, and Bea as a host, I think the main reason is most of the people think black people have lower situation than the whites, is not because of the education background. The skin color is really important to distribute their social situation, that’s why in this film Bea has to be the host and Delilah has to be the maid. In the film, Delilah massage Bea’s feet several times, that makes audience think Delilah is very valuable about she and Bea’s relationship. She is very clearly to know their relationship at their home. Even though Bea is really nice and takes care of her and her daughter Peola, but she knows everything she got now that is Bea give it to her. She should and has to be nice and loyalty to Bea. So Delilah would like to be Bea’s maid and take care of her. Another reason is Delilah did everything actually is for her daughter. Delilah loves her daughter so much; she came to Bea’s house to be a maid is because daughter to have a place can live. So Delilah is very nice...

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...In my piece of work I will analyse Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of life (1959) in terms of narrative and genre to show how the key terms of racism, femininity and celebrity are developed. First of all, genre is a classification of a text that creates an assumption of what the text is going to be about. It is simply another word for “type” or “kind”. Genre works by fulfilling the expectations of the audience. This means that genre films must have elements that are unexpected, predictable and formulaic. (Roberts and Wallis: 2001) Thus the audience find pleasure in the familiar what they can relate to, but they also wish to experience something that they have not done before whether it is unfamiliar emotions or peculiar situations.
Imitation of life is a film of the melodrama genre which is mostly characterized by exaggerated emotions, interpersonal conflicts and stereotypical characters. In this film Lora Meredith and her daughter Susie are stereotypical white females connoting femininity. Both of them are blonde, always nicely dressed with neat hair styles. In addition, Lora Meredith is a celebrity and therefore an icon of femininity and good looks. She exemplifies the standards of beauty impossible for a black woman to achieve. She is appealing for men and she is always surrounded with loads of people in the film. On the other hand Lora has a more ‘manly’ role because she is occupied with her carrier and spends no...

...10/3/11
Black Pop Culture.
Imation of Life Film Review
“Imitation of Life” is a coveted 1959 classic that brings about memories of a time when fair skinned black people felt obliged to revoke their heritage and cultures in attempt to “pass” for a better life. In a modern time of social equality, this direct problem is not as evident, but many people still try to portray people they are not in order to be accepted by a certain group. This is an important film because it shows real life situations of how both sides of the spectrum looked at black people, and those who were caught “passing”. The story chronicles the lives of Lora, Annie, and their daughters Susie and Sarah Jane.
The film begins with Lora and Annie at Coney Island where their daughters become playmates. Annie shocks Lora when she explains that she is not, seemingly white, Sarah Jane’s nanny, but actually her black mother. Annie explains to her that Sarah Jane’s “practically white” father is long gone, and they have no place to go. The fact that she says practically white is interesting because it leaves room for you to imagine whether or not he really was Caucasian, and it that small wording difference seems to help Lora digest the news better.
Sarah Jane’s color struck behavior continues throughout her childhood with various instances. For example, Susie offers Sarah Jane her black doll, but she instead takes the white doll from her....

...1- Referring to your notes on the film, Imitation of Life, explain how having the ability to pass is a blessing and a curse. Make sure to be specific and provide one blessing and one curse.
In the film, “Imitation of Life,” Sara Jane is a black young woman with the skin color of a white person. No one really knows that she is black except Susie, Laura and Steve. The people at her school thinks she is white and they don’t expect her to have a black mother, until she shows up there to bring Sara Jane something. Sara was passing as a white girl and no one really knew that either.
Sara’s ability to pass as a white girl was effective only for so long. As she grew older she wanted nothing to do with her mother because she was black and everyone would know she wasn’t white. I think it is good to pass for certain reasons like a job because no one knew her back round of where she was from. Sara did a good job passing as a white person because even her new friends didn’t think of her being black at any point throughout the film. When her mother did come looking for her in her hotel room, Sara told a friend that was her nanny not her mother.
I think passing is more of a curse than a blessing. People may think you are white but then when they find out, they get upset that you may have lied about it. During the time of the film when her boyfriend found out she had a black mother he beat her and I think this was the...

...Blacks in Cinema 2151
March 5, 2013
Set in New York in the 1950’s, Imitation of Life by Douglas Sirk portrays a complex relationship between a Black American mother and her fair skin daughter, Sarah Jane. Appearance is a central theme throughout the story. Sarah Jane can “pass” as white because of her fair skin but despises the fact that her mother is black. Unlike Sarah, her mother Annie accepts her fate and status dated by the society, Sarah Jane challenges the status quo and adventures out to pursue a whole new world for herself. Sarah Jane seizes every opportunity to break away from her beloved mother to live (or perhaps imitate) a life that offers equal opportunities in the society.
For example, the scene in the motel room is helpful in portraying the love and conflict between Sarah Jane and Annie. In this scene, Annie accepts that the highest expression of love for her daughter is to let her go. The scenes in the motel room are carefully constructed to show the love and tension between Sarah Jane and her mother Annie. Sarah Jane does not want to be seen together with her mother and fears that her coworker will show up at any moment. Determined to break away from her mother, Sarah Jane then picks up her suitcase to start packing. With the wall barrier, the frame appears to be a split between Annie on one side and Sarah Jane on the other. The division creates a visual sense of boundary and confrontation....

...Imitation of Life & Maureen Peal
Imitation of Life is about Peola Johnson, light skined black girl who tries to go through life as a white person. To achieve this she ostracises her family. She breaks all ties with her black mother and her culture and tries to fit into this community in which she really has no place.
"It's because of you, you made me black! I won't be black!"
The problems Maureen Peal and Peola Johnsson share are as serious as the ones the young blck girls have in the bluest yes.
According to Sandy Flitterman-Lewis:
In each film's representation of the transgressive woman-the black daughter who looks white, and who, because of the contradiction between being and seeming which defines her, can fit comfortably into neither culture-there is a correspondence between feminine sexuality and alterity which results in a sexualization of the radical 'otherness' of the black woman. (44)
This is instrumental to the development of Pecola's charater. This is also instrumental to the fate she meets in the end. Pecola and Peola are similar, not in their looks but in their situations. Pecola does also live between two worlds like Peola but in a different manner. Peolas's problems are serious and the implictions are serious and extensive. According to Flitterman-Lewis, the mere term mulato brings up miscegenation, and theerfore leads people to think of "forbidden sexual relations and the...

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